Ban
Man Pro Version 3.0 Weighting System -- Ban Man Pro Version 3.0
introduces several new weighting systems. In addition to
the existing weighting system of 1-100, version 3 now offers a
1-1000 system, Relative and In-Sequence weighting systems.
These systems are defined below.

The following weighting systems are
supported:

100: This is the original weighting
system in Ban Man Pro version 1 through 2.2. The sum of all selected
banners should sum to 100. In the event that the sum is less than
100 the default banner is shown. This weighting system supports up
to 100 campaigns. Here is an example:

Campaign
Name

Weighting

Percent
of Time Displayed

Campaign 1

50

50%

Campaign 2

25

25%

Total

75

75%

Note: Because the above weightings sum to
75, the default is then displayed 25% of the time.

1000: Just like the 100 based
system, the sum of all weightings should be 1000, otherwise a default is
shown. This higher weighting system is provided for support of up to
1000 campaigns.

Campaign
Name

Weighting

Percent
of Time Displayed

Campaign 1

500

50%

Campaign 2

250

25%

Campaign 3

250

25%

Total

1000

100%

Relative (Total of All Weightings):
This weighting system allows you to essentially use your own weighting
system. All weightings are relative to each other and as long as at
least 1 campaign is valid in the zone then the default is NEVER
displayed. For example, if you have three campaigns, giving them
each a weighting of 1 would produce the same result as giving them each a
weighting of 5 since 1/3 is the same as 5/15. This system allows you
to give one campaign a very high relative weighting so that it will
dominate the rotation. It also supports even rotation of an un-even numbers of
campaigns. Lastly, it allows you to avoid displaying a default to
ensure that paid ads are always displayed. Below
is an example:

Campaign
Name

Weighting

Percent
of Time Displayed

Campaign 1

1

12.5%

Campaign 2

6

75%

Campaign 3

1

12.5

Total

8

100%

In
Sequence: This weighting system allows you to rotate through the
selected campaigns in Sequence. The weighting of each selected
campaign should be 1. If greater than 1 that campaign will show up X
number of times. For example, suppose I have 3 campaigns as follows:

Campaign
1, Weight 1
Campaign 2, Weight 2
Campaign 3, Weight 1

By refreshing,
the campaign will appear in this order: Campaign 1, Campaign 2, Campaign
2, Campaign 3.... Note that Campaign 2 is repeated twice because the
weighting is 2. Since you typically do not want to repeat a campaign
to a web viewer upon refresh, we recommend using a weighting of 1 for all
campaigns that are rotated in Sequence. Also,
as long as 1 campaign in the sequence is valid the default will not be
displayed.

How
Can I prevent an ad from being displayed twice on a
page?: By using the In Sequence rotation
method, and provided you have several campaigns in the
zone, you can repeat the zone code multiple times on a
page. For example, if you have a sponsorship of 3
banners down the page, you could repeat the zone code 3
times. Since the ads are selected in sequence, the
user should not see the same ad repeated twice within
the 3 banner spots. Be sure to modify the PageID
in each copy of the zone code so that the cache is
defeated in older browsers. In
version 4 you can better accomplish this by creating one
zone and using the Sponsorship ad tags.

Here is the way the ad sequence routine works...

A pointer is maintained in the database for each
zone. Each time an ad is called the pointer is moved by
one campaign. Because different browsers render the page
differently depending on which ad tags you use the
rendering may be out of order with what you would
expect. This is especially true with the non-cache
defeating ad tags since there is no guaranteed rendering
order in IE. If you switch to the Javascript ad tags the
page should be rendered in order and the sequence should
work. Netscape renders the entire page in order so
either should work in Netscape but the Javascript should
work in both.

Because the pointer is maintained in the database it
is NOT session specific (specific to each user).
Therefore, if 5 people are refreshing the same page at
the same time they may not appear in sequence as the
various requests from each user may be made at the same
time. User 1 might get Campaigns 1,2,4,5 while user 2
might get Campaigns 3,1,2,3.

Because of this you should include a much larger
number of campaigns within an in-sequence zone then the
number of times the zone code is displayed on a page.
For example, if you are displaying the zone code 4
times, you should have at least 10 campaigns so people
don't see the same campaign. Again, the display is in
sequence for the list of campaigns but since multiple
requests can come in from multiple people at the same
time they may not appear in sequence to a specific user.